


Yureka!!! I Have Found It

by havisham



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Bad Puns, Bodyswap, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Hair Kink, M/M, Russian Emojis, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 17:25:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8902456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: Yuri Plisetsky wakes up and makes a hideous discovery: himself, but old. The horror!!!





	

When Yuri Plisetsky woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found that he had changed into the twenty-seven year old version of himself. 

He had gone to bed as a fifteen year old world champion who had shattered one of Victor Nikiforov's record for the Men’s Short Program -- that night he had drunk three glasses of champagne, over Yakov’s protests. And why not? Within a single season, Yuri had wiped the slate clean of even the memory of Victor Nikiforov and his old, irrelevant accomplishments. 

That morning, Yuri felt very tired -- exhausted, in fact, as if he hadn't slept for a decade. Getting up from bed, his body felt heavier than before and his tread weaving and unsure. 

Still drunk! He shook his head. Yakov had been right that he wouldn't be able to handle his liquor, though of course Yuri would never admit it outside the privacy of his own head. He groped around for his phone and found it in its regular place -- under his pillow -- and started at the date. April 7th. Huh. The calendar app must have a bug. Maybe that's why his alarm hadn't rung. It would also explain why he was starving, and why his bladder felt like it was about to burst. 

His bladder _was_ about to burst -- Yuri shot out of bed and hurried to the bathroom, and, fearing that he would piss on himself otherwise, fumbled desperately with his briefs for a moment before yanking it down and pissing down the sink. 

Yuri leaned back a little and sighed, content. When he was finished, he glanced briefly at the mirror as he was washing his hands when he realized his reflection was wrong. 

He screamed and threw the nearest, heaviest thing at it, which was a bottle of cologne that shattered on impact and did nothing except make one single crack down the length of the mirror. The smell of the cologne filled the air, plunging him in a nightmarish miasma. 

God, his _hair._

It was exactly the same. 

Yuri’s his first thought (when he could think and not just look at his reflection with screaming horror) was that some idiotic joker had replaced his regular bathroom mirror with a funhouse mirror, stretching out his face and lengthening his nose and chin, and, more impressively, adding a layer of light-brown stubble across the lower part of his face. 

He slapped his cheek and saw the skin redden at the impact. He pinched himself. Nothing. 

Shaking a little, he checked the calendar on his phone. April 7th, it still said. But the year was 2027 and he was, impossibly, twenty-seven and his entire life was over.

He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know -- why was this happening to him? He needed help, he needed someone to help him. He grabbed his phone and began to scroll through his contacts until he came to Victor’s number. After a moment of hesitation, Yuri hit the call button. 

Victor picked up on the second ring, yawning. “Yuri? What’s wrong? Is Ya-” 

Yuri ended the call.

He took a deep breath, trying to be calm. 

Calmness didn’t work, so he trashed the rest of the bathroom, and then the bedroom. 

One thing about his new body -- he could wreck a lot more stuff now than he could have yesterday. That was … useful? The muscles were nice. But still. He was trapped in a body that wasn’t his -- wasn’t exactly his. “Fuck this shit!” he screamed, and someone started banging on the walls, telling him to shut up. 

“You shut up!” Yuri shouted back. “I’ll scream if I want to! Go to hell!” 

But he didn’t need to scream anymore. Simmering rage would have to do. 

Yuri’s traitorous brain had the gall to register disappointment that he looked nothing like Victor did when he retired. What the fuck? Had their resemblance truly been so shallow? Yuri’s face was more angular than Victor’s face had been, and his nose more prominent and -- crooked? Had he broken it? When? Why?

 _I’m either in a dream, or I’ve gone crazy._

Or both could be true. 

If Yuri could have shaken himself awake, he would have. But he couldn't wake up; he couldn't change back to what he was. 

*

He left the apartment without anyone stopping him. He needed to breathe, to escape somewhere even if it was just down the street. Although he was wrapped up in a large hoodie and had mirrored sunglasses to hide his face, Yuri felt that everyone was looking at him. He went around the corner and stopped at a coffee shop to get a cup of coffee and read the newspaper -- he couldn't believe there were still newspapers -- and found a picture of himself on front page of the sports section.

_The Ice Tiger of Russia Returns Home With His 6th Consecutive Gold Medal!_

Yuri was frowning slightly in the picture accompanying the article, his arms folded across his chest, half-covering his gold medal. The two other skaters were strangers to him, one from China and the other from Sweden. Both were younger than him, and looked more satisfied with their lot in life. 

“Asshole, why aren't you happy with this?” Yuri muttered to himself. Then his phone rang as if in answer. Yakov’s ringtone, apparently, hadn’t changed in all this time. As soon as Yuri picked up, Yakov demanded to know where he was and why he wasn't at the rink. 

He was so loud that the other people in the café were turning to look at Yuri, who hunched back into his seat. He didn't want to be recognized. “I'm coming, I'm coming,” he told Yakov quietly. “I just needed some time alone.” 

Yakov cut himself off in mid-shout. He grunted in acknowledgment. “You need to get back to the rink by this afternoon.”

“Fine,” Yuri said, and hung up. He slumped forward, covering his face with his arms. 

Someone tapped Yuri on the shoulder. Yuri jerked up and saw an earnest-looking young woman looking down at him. 

“Excuse me sir, but aren't you Yuri Plisetsky, the Ice Tiger of Russia?” She whipped out a poster of Yuri. “May I have an autograph?” 

“What? No! I'm not Yuri Plisetsky, and I won't give you an autograph,” Yuri said, getting up from his chair and moving towards the door. 

A small crowd of people had gathered around the young woman, and everyone began to talk at once. A man in the back said, “It's got to be Yuri Plisetsky, he's always rude to his fans.” 

It was the perfect goddamn lure. 

He stayed and signed autographs and took some tortured selfies. He drew the line at the cat ears, however, and even his more dedicated fans agreed it wasn't as cute as it used to be. 

*

He called Otabek and got a busy signal, which surprised him. When he was prompted to leave a voicemail, Yuri hesitated for a moment before he hit the end call button. 

*

Ironically, the place he felt the steadiest was on the ice. He couldn't skate like he had before -- his center of gravity was different, his entire body was different -- but Yuri had been on the ice since he was three years old. He had the feeling of it in his bones, and he found himself remembering things that he hadn’t yet learned. His body remembered, anyway.

He could skate, even in this strange and heavy thing that was his adult frame. 

There was a horde of junior skaters on the sides, watching him, but none dared approach him, which was good. Yuri made lazy figure eights on the ice, his mind working furiously about what he should do, who he should contact. He didn’t have time to read up on twelve years’ of accomplishments, but coming into his home rink had shown him rows and rows of photographs, of medals he had won. He was better than Victor, in every way that mattered. 

So absorbed was Yuri that he didn’t see the other skater until the little punk slammed into him. 

Later, Yakov would scold him, tell him that it wasn’t seemly that a world champion would get into a physical altercation with a thirteen year old, but Yuri hadn’t. The thirteen year old had started it. 

*

Yakov’s hair was entirely white now, and his complaints that his skaters would be the death of him had taken on more than little hint of inevitability. Lilia had retired, again, and now spent half the year living in the south of France. (She would occasionally sent Yuri messages on social media either criticizing his fashion choices -- which were amazing, he didn’t know what she was talking about -- or instructing him to make sure Yakov didn’t entirely neglect himself.) 

(Yakov, upon seeing these messages, would only sigh and say that he had been neglecting himself for as long as he could remember.)

“All of my students -- you, Victor in his time, they have taken from me what they could. What did they give me?" 

“Money and prestige?” Yuri said, paying only half-a-mind to Yakov’s words.

“Heartbreak and suffering!” snapped Yakov. “Yuri, you must grow up, even a little, if you want to go to the next stage of your career.” 

Yuri sneered. “They will have to drag me off the ice before I retire, old man. I won’t give up!” 

Yakov rolled his eyes, as if he’d heard all of this before. (He surely had.) 

*

Yuri’s schedule did not allow him to travel out to see his grandfather’s grave. He had only died three years ago, shortly after Yuri had won gold at the Olympics. 

Yuri had to satisfy himself with stilted conversation with his mother, who was no more interested in him when he was twenty-seven then she had been when he was ten. The money came every month, as expected. Yuri knew that his younger sister had expressed an interest in skating too -- but now he learned that she had given it up -- she didn’t have the right body for it. She was in school now, studying to be a doctor. 

“Strange that you should be asking about her now, Yuri,” his mother said. “I thought you didn’t care about us.” 

_I don’t_ , Yuri wanted to say. “Of course I do,” he said instead. 

Life continued on. 

Afterward, Yuri curled up in his bed and stared at the ceiling. He did not cry, he couldn't, he wouldn't allow himself even this weakness. He wished that he had learned to make his more of grandfather’s recipes -- not just the katsudon piroshkis. Everything else. He wished he had him back. 

*

The next time he called Otabek, he picked up. His voice sounded different, but of course it did -- there was a world of difference between eighteen and thirty. His hello was guarded, but he warmed up when he realized that it was Yuri. 

“We haven’t spoken in a year,” Otabek said after an awkward pause. 

“I’ve been busy,” Yuri said. He was huddled up in Yakov’s office, where skaters would often go to make private phone-calls. On the walls there was still a great deal of Victor memorabilia, which had migrated from the front hall. Yuri glared up at one particular photo, taken just after Victor had cut his hair. He could remember the hue and cry that had accompanied that haircut, the breathless media coverage. He’d made it so that if Yuri ever cut his hair, no matter what style, he would be seen as imitating Victor. 

“I want to see you,” Yuri said, interrupting Otabek’s answer to a question he didn’t remember asking. “Come to the next competition. I’ll send you a plane ticket.” 

“I have a job,” Otabek said calmly. That was the thing about Otabek -- he never let Yuri’s brattiness get to him, which was both soothing and aggravating in turns. Sometimes Yuri had to have a reaction, had to have someone to push back against him. Or else it wasn’t real. Nothing was. 

“Yuri, you know it won’t be the same as it was when I was competing.” 

“I know that. I just -- I miss you.” Yuri felt his older self’s anguish invade his thoughts, clouding his senses. He couldn’t keep distance from his emotions. “I miss our friendship.” There. He had said it.

“I know,” Otabek said. He hesitated for a moment and said, “I’ll try.” 

The call ended soon after.

*

On the ice again.

There was no one to watch him this time. 

*

Yuri woke up again, and he was still old. He was getting used to the aches and pains, and when he shuffled into the bathroom, he saw that someone had cleaned the room and threw away the shards of the cologne bottle, though the mirror was still cracked. His hair was a rat’s nest and he thought about cutting it off. 

When he went back to bed, his phone buzzed and then went silent. He had been avoiding looking at social media -- he scrolled through pictures of Mila’s students getting ready for their first competition, Georgi and his latest girlfriend (Yuri had always suspected that Georgi only dated for the inevitable heartbreak anyway), Christophe promoting another execrable film, and a bunch of other people he didn’t recognize. He checked his missed calls, as an afterthought. 

_Victor Nikiforov, 15 secs @ 23:51._

*

Yuri called Victor back immediately to tell him to go fuck himself, but the call went to voicemail. Infuriated, Yuri dug through his various social media accounts until he found out that Victor was currently in St. Petersburg on “family business.” (That could mean anything. Victor didn’t have any family left in Russia, as far as Yuri knew.) 

Before he could think twice about it, Yuri fired off a few texts to Victor. 

**Yuri Plisetsky:** hey old man 

**Yuri Plisetsky:** don’t ignore me, i know u called 

**Yuri Plisetsky:** come to yakov’s, i want to see how little hair you have left 

**✔ Seen by Victor Nikiforov, 04:30**

**Victor Nikiforov:** Ok. 

**✔ Seen by Yuri Plisetsky, 06:45**

**Yuri Plisetsky:** what enthusiasm for ur 1st protege! 

**Victor Nikiforov:** You make it so hard, Yurio. 

**Yuri Plisetsky:** dont call me that, im canceling 

**Victor Nikiforov:** ...Yuri! You considered yourself my protégé? )

 **Yuri Plisetsky:** NO. 

**Yuri Plisetsky:** u included the accents, really?? 

**Yuri Plisetsky:** u pretentious fuck, you’ve never even been to university

 **Victor Nikiforov:** See you soon. ))) 

*

Victor could still draw a crowd to him, and he thrived when all eyes were on him in a way that Yuri never could manage. Yuri always wanted to shrink back, on the defensive even before anyone had the chance to talk to him. Yuri was surprised that the younger skaters could recognize Victor on sight, since the banners and photos of Victor’s career had been largely replaced by his own. 

But still, Victor had been Yakov’s shining star for so long, it wasn’t surprising that even the tiniest skater here would recognize Victor, even if they didn’t know his name. Yuri hung back from the crowd and watched Victor work, talking and bending down to take selfies (he saw, to his satisfaction, that Victor straightened up painfully after that). Victor spotted him almost immediately and waved him in, but Yuri stayed where he was. 

Eventually Victor tore himself away from his adoring fans and headed towards him. Yuri saw to his immense displeasure that the thirteen year old that he had _not_ fought with earlier -- a brat named Alexei -- was especially disappointed to see Victor go.

Yuri was an adult and in his prime and certainly did not pull a face at Alexei as he and Victor walked away, and he certainly did not enjoy watching the boy’s face fall to see his idol walk away with his enemy. 

They walked around the rink, the rest of the skaters and instructors giving them a wide berth. 

“Still fighting with children, Yura?” Victor said, with more affection than Yuri expected from him. Still, Yuri bristled. 

“Like you fought with me when you were my age?” 

“I never fought with you, Yuri. There were many times I wanted to take you on my knee and spank the brattiness out of you, but I never did it.” 

“Perhaps you should've,” Yuri muttered, and Victor laughed -- really laughed, throwing back his head and making Yuri nervous that Victor was actually making fun of him. 

“How is Katsudon? Looks exactly like his mother now, I suppose.” Yuri stuck his hands in his pocket and walked ahead of Victor, resenting slightly that even now Victor was taller than he was. 

“That… was not as hurtful as it could have been, thank you.” Victor grinned. “Yes, he does, a little. But she's a lovely woman who raised a lovely son. They're renovating the onsen just now and you know I'm useless with tools -- with building.” Victor gave a delicate shudder. “I thought I would take a jaunt up to St. Petersburg, sign some papers, finish things up here.” 

“You don't think you're coming back?” 

“My life is in Hasetsu.” 

“You don't find it suffocating sometimes, living in a provincial backwater in a foreign country? Surrounded by people who don't understand your language, can't understand your life? All for Katsudon?” 

“For him, I could do anything. Of course I'm sometimes lonely in Hasetsu, but I was lonely in St. Petersburg too, though I spent my first twenty-seven years here. You take everything with you, Yuri. You can't escape yourself.” 

Yuri stared at him for a while before he shook his head. “It's amazing. Your hair is completely gone -- the top of your head must get quite cold.” 

Victor sulked and muttered that it was better to have too little hair than it was to have too much-- here he looked pointed at Yuri’s hair, which was braided back today and came to Yuri’s neck. 

Yuri gave Victor’s weak comeback all the scorn it deserved. “I can't believe girls used to faint at the sight of you. Though I suppose they still do -- for different reasons.” 

“Yura!” 

“Here, feel my hair -- yank at the roots. It's solid as a rock. My grandfather died with a full head of hair at age eighty-six.” 

“How would you know when he was always wearing that hat?” 

“You think I would lie about my dead grandfather, the only person I've ever loved? That’s low, even for you, Victor.” 

“You’ve loved more people than your grandfather, Yuri,” Victor said, though it sounded like a question. 

“Well. I loved you,” Yuri said, in a voice so low that only Victor could hear him. “I was in love with you. For the longest time. It drove me crazy that you never looked at me, Vitya.” 

Victor blinked, those beautiful blue-green eyes shining like mirrors under the sea. (Yuri was no poet, though he felt that by being Russian, he had something of a poet’s soul.) 

Reproachfully, Victor said, “But I am an old married man, Yura.” 

“Old and married and balding. You aren't even rich! Your clothes, though carefully preserved, are hopelessly out of date. You aren't even an oligarch who can buy me an apartment in Paris and come visit me when your wife gets too much. Useless!” 

A silence grew between them, which lengthened as they walked, but not uncomfortably so. 

“Do you want to skate?” Yuri asked him. 

Victor nodded, and there was a gleam of excitement his eyes when said, “Shall we have a wager?” 

“No. It would not be fair to you, as fat and old as you are, to compete against me, a young man in his prime.” Yuri flipped away some of the hair that had escaped his braid. “What's the wager?” 

“You,” Victor said, and grabbed one of the skates. He would not explain any further. Instead, he went off to fuss with the music, until at last Yuri heard familiar notes strain in from the sound system above. 

_On Love: Agape._ Yuri had not heard this music since his senior debut. He still remembered the routine, of course, but the thought of the jumps made him pause now. 

He wondered if Victor could do it. From his obsessive reading of social media, Yuri knew that Victor had surgery on his back a few years ago, and of course, he wasn't competing anymore. Could he still hope to do it? 

But then Victor took the ice and it seemed suddenly like no time had passed. Yuri was back in juniors, watching the Living Legend perform for himself, promising himself all the while that someday, someday soon -- he would be able to compete against Victor himself. 

Of course, that had not happened, and Yuri had blamed both Victor and Yuuri for that. 

It was clear that Victor was out of practice -- he skated at the Ice Castle, but nowhere near at his former level. (Yuri still got regular updates from Yuuko about Hasetsu and her girls -- who were, terrifyingly, all in their late teens now and seemed in a constant state of rampage on the ice and off.) 

Yuri cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Victor! If you try a jump and you break your back, Katsudon is going to kill me!” 

Victor waved him off. He moved like skater may years his junior, but there was still a feeling -- a shaky feeling to his moves that made something clench inside Yuri. He did not actually want Victor to hurt himself. 

He was brave to do it. He was stupid to do it. Both things were clear in Yuri’s mind as well as the feeling that he was watching something like humanity striving against death and decay -- and if not succeeding, then not utterly failing either. 

The madman even made a jump, which made Yuri shout and clutch at the edge of the rink barrier, but Victor landed it with barely a wobble. He finished triumphant and the crowd that has gathered applauded him madly, as all would if they had chance to see a living legend in action. 

Victor was breathing hard when he skated up to where Yuri waited for him with arms folded across his chest. Yuri smirked and handed him a water bottle. “Let me guess, you want me to skate Eros?” 

“If you would.” 

Yuri had skated to Eros, though only in practise, and in an empty rink. He was only four years older than Yuuri had been when he had done it, and beaten Yuri in the Onsen on Ice challenge. Yuri skated it competently enough, but neither his heart nor his mind was in it. He was not surprised to see that when the music stopped, he did not receive as much applause as Victor. This stung, of course, but Yuri could survive it.

Victor shook his head sadly when Yuri skated over to him. “Yura, you did well, but my Yuuri did it better.” 

“To hell with you, old man,” Yuri said, flipping him off. He pulled off his hair tie and shook loose his hair. Victor’s smug smile slipped a little off his face. 

“Cruel Yuri!” Victor admonished, but to no avail. 

There was a shout and they looked over to where Yakov was coming toward them at a brisk pace. “Yuri, Victor, come to my office at once! The tea is ready!” 

*

“I didn't ask you here for advice, you know,” Yuri said to Victor as he was leaving. Victor paused for a moment and tapped a finger against his lip. 

“You don't want my advice,” Victor said. 

“That's right,” Yuri said. 

“And if I gave it, you wouldn't listen.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, all right, Yurio. Can't wait to see what you do with your post-skating career! Goodbye!” 

Yuri thought of throwing a cup of tea at Victor’s head, but decided against it. The cup belonged to Yakov and Lilia’s wedding china and Yuri quite liked the golden lions that decorated the outside of the cup. So he set it aside and was content to roast Victor on social media, especially in places that he knew both Victor and Yuuri would check. 

As the replies rolled in, Yuri kicked back and drank more tea. 

*

 **Victor Nikiforov:** This how you show your love? [heartbreak emoji]

 **Yuri Plisetsky:** lov **ed**

*

It was his first competition after his change, and inwardly, Yuri was shaking. What if he failed? He was missing twelve years of experience, on top of a body that was still a little alien to him. What if he crashed and burned? 

(How many people would be glad to see that happen?) 

“Don’t over think it,” Yakov growled at him when he saw Yuri looking rather blankly at the ice. “And turn off your phone.” 

Yuri nodded. He scrolled through his phone one last time, smiling as he saw the updates on Otabek’s flight. He was somewhere in the stadium now, close enough that Yuri hoped that he would be able to see him. (Though he knew that with the glare of the lights, that would be impossible.) 

Victor and Yuuri, with their shared social media account, had messaged him their good wishes, and Yuri read them with a slightly bemused expression on his face. He could not believe that he had once wanted to be a part of that. A _shared_ social media account, for God’s sake. How sickening was that? 

*

Soon it was Yuri’s time to go on the ice. He removed his blade guards and squared his shoulders, breathed out. There was no big revelation. He wasn’t going to change. He had lived his life according to his own whims -- he’d suffered for it and prospered for it. 

He would not change. 

The announcer called his name and the crowd roared in approval. Yuri skated out, his arms raised. 

There it was, his reason for being. 

*

“Yuri! Yuri! Wake up! Yakov, I hold you responsible for this. How could you allow him to drink all that champagne?” 

“Do you think I allowed it? He must’ve been sneaking drinks the whole night.” 

“So irresponsible! I’m glad we never had children together.” 

“Now’s not the time, Lilia.” 

“I’m calling the ambulance --” 

“Wait! Look, he’s waking… Yuri? Are you alive, you terrible boy?” 

Yuri blinked and saw Yakov and Lilia looking down at him. He was in his hotel room in Barcelona. He put his hands in front of his face and saw that he was still wearing the wristband from the party last night. Yuri’s voice was scratchy and thin when he asked, “How old am I?”

Lilia swore under her breath, elegantly but effectively. Yakov turned pale. 

“You are fifteen still, Yurochka,” Yakov said. “You mustn’t be in such a hurry to grow up.” 

“I’m not,” Yuri said, and meant it. 

He looked around at his room, at his skating gear that he had laid on the bed beside him, his costume waiting for him in the closet. Everything ready for his Free Skate program, ready for him to make history. 

The dream didn’t matter. Yuri knew that. It had just been a dream, his brain’s garbled take on what was troubling him. He wanted to be loved? He was. He wanted to be remembered? He would be. He wanted to know what to do? He knew what he was going to do, and he was going to do it. 

Yuri had been reborn once, he could do it again, and again, as many times as it took. Maybe Yuri couldn’t truly escape himself, but perhaps he didn’t need to. 

Maybe this time, he could do it even better. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks Whitefang 3927 for beta-ing. All remaining mistakes are mine.


End file.
